You've Got A Vicious Streak For Someone So Young
by spheeris1
Summary: COMPLETED :: Beginning of Season Three, then goes AU :: Angst :: Multi-part thing that I started months ago :: 'She can’t fix and she can’t forget – she can’t go back in time – she can’t take back what was said or done…' :: Title is a New Order song
1. 1

"Stupid shitty traffic!"

Ashley Davies hits the steering wheel and she is not a multi-millionaire.  
Not yet anyway.  
But the meeting she is late for, with record execs that caught her little show in some little dive two weeks ago, will be the turning point.  
And it'll be a good turning point alright, the kind you dream of as a little kid when all the world needs to do to make you happy is to give you all the big and bold things – a pony, a sports car, a mansion on the hill and servants and so many toys.

She doesn't know this meeting will change everything. It's just a meeting. She's just running late.  
The traffic in L.A. is murder at any hour and she didn't think ahead enough.  
And the fumes are heavy in the air of a thousand cars ahead of her and behind her.  
Ashley doesn't know that this meeting will shove all other disappoints out of her head for years. Ashley doesn't know that her life is about to catapult into another stratosphere.

She just knows that she is running late, as usual.  
Late to meetings and late to school and too late to fix problems of her own making… that's Ashley Davies, in traffic and sunglasses on and cursing the stand-still of what she believes to be her life.

And she'd call and complain to Kyla, if Kyla wasn't helping the homeless and the foodless and the lifeless. And she'd call and complain to Aiden, if Aiden wasn't in love with her and wasn't always waiting on the sidelines for her.

Ashley would call Spencer, if Spencer wasn't avoiding her and wasn't shutting Ashley so completely out.  
She'd call Spencer and wait for the girl to say **something** – not like anything anyone would consider special or epic, just calm and just right and just so much something Spencer would say… like '_chill out_' or '_don't worry, they'll love you_' or… or anything at all.  
Ashley would listen to anything at all from Spencer.

"God, **finally**…"

Ashley Davies cuts off a couple of cars and speeds ahead, going through a red-light and earning a few disgruntled honks of horns.  
And she is late, so damn late for so many things.  
Just like this meeting.  
Just like this meeting that will forever change her life.

Spencer picks up a paper and reads it slowly.  
She drinks her coffee slowly and leans back in her chair.  
She slowly rotates the chair back and forth as the travel section falls to the floor.  
She lets the entertainment section drift to the floor as well, not bothering to check the times to movies she has no interest in seeing or the art shows she's already walked through.

And she doesn't want to see Ashley Davies face.  
Because some wounds don't heal.  
They fester and they fragment into something dangerous.  
Some wounds never leave you, they never turn to faint white swatches on your skin and they never just ache with the coming of rain.  
Some wounds carry too much muscle memory, a limb lost but still tingling with life, and Spencer feels the throb of something long gone.

Seven years to the day, where some art studio held the two of them for the last time and where Spencer Carlin took a knife to that connection.  
She had to cut Ashley loose from her body, she had to save herself from more heartbreak and just let the girl go… just let her go, a breeze never to be captured…  
And Spencer Carlin walked away. She ignored phone-calls in the middle of the night and told the world at large that she was just fine and told herself that '_you can't keep living with poisonous love_'…

It's funny, to think of it now, the dramatics of it all and the sorrow of it all.  
And it's funny, because, somewhere… it still matters and it still hurts and it still causes Spencer's hands to form fists.  
The paper gets torn and she drops it all to the floor.  
The coffee is left cold on her desk and she gets her phone, dialing familiar numbers.

She doesn't want to see Ashley Davies face back in this town, in L.A. with minions and with whores.  
And she doesn't want to feel bitterness well up in her blood like a fever.

But she can only solve one problem at a time.

"Hey Phil, yea… yea, I wanted to talk to you about that position in Kenya… well, you don't have to flatter me like this… Then consider it mine… Yes, I'm sure… My mother can do that, no worries and I've got my passport… yea, well, it is a serious topic and I didn't think I'd have the time to do that and my project, but I do…"

Spencer Carlin will fly out of California at six p.m. and then out of the States around nine p.m., missing the biggest concert to hit the west coast and she sighs out in relief.

**** **** ****

TBC


	2. 2

There are times when she wants Kyla with her, singing with her and laughing with her and saying philosophical things. But her sister has a life and can only stop it so many times before pushing Ashley back to her own existence.

They hug tightly after pictures and interviews and free meals and getting chased by media.  
They order something sweet from room service, which should be closed for guests now – but not for Ashley Davies.  
She carries a title with her all the time and it just depends on the day which one you get.  
All of those titles are celebrity royalty, though.

'_Indie queen_' or '_pop singer/songwriter_' or '_one hit wonder_' or '_head of the Lilith Fair resurgence_' or '_seen making out with so-n-so at such-n-such club_'… they are all her, just never at the same time.  
She is split apart and running in so many directions, each personality getting just a little more demanding for time in the limelight.

But with Kyla, they are just sisters eating triple-fudge ice cream and making fun of the latest incarnation of 'The Real World' and talking about the things that she so disdained in high school.

"Aiden was back here a couple of weeks ago."  
"How is he?"  
"Better, I think."  
"Still in therapy?"  
"Yes, but less these days. He wants me to come up there some time and visit."  
"You should."  
"Would you be interested in going?"  
"And bring my trusty gang of paparazzi with me?"  
"I've still got those wigs from three Halloweens' ago…"  
"I just need a fedora and we're all set, Kyla."  
"I'm sure he'd like to see you, that's all. He still thinks of you as a friend."  
"Yea, I'm sure."  
"I'm not lying, okay? We talk a lot and I believe him when—"  
"Are you two back on then?"  
"… No, not at all. Why do you always do that?"  
"Do what?"  
"Push this issue away and try to make it about Aiden and me getting back together…"  
"God, Kyla, I'm not doing that—"  
"Sometimes I wonder if you'll ever change, Ashley."  
"Please, just… let's not do this, okay?"

Maybe she hasn't changed at all, not with all her money and all her fame. Maybe she is still the selfish girl who just can't admit to making a mistake and doesn't know how to ask for forgiveness to save her life. Maybe she doesn't want to talk about Aiden and how she just treated his feelings like shit and didn't pay attention to the fact that he was falling apart.

She was just thinking about how **Ashley** was falling apart back then.  
She was just thinking about disappearing over the ocean and away from a boy who longed for her and a girl who needed her and a life she couldn't handle.  
She was in Europe, smoking cigarettes and watching her mother drop to another level of debauchery.  
She was in Europe, trying not to dream of gunshots and bloody chests and weeping eyes.  
She was in a whole other place while the people she loved were left to cope.

It was all years ago now and, yet, Ashley knows it haunts her… a ghost that doesn't leave with the dawn, a spirit stuck within Ashley's bones like marrow.

"How is she?"

And just like that, it slips out and Kyla frowns to herself and Ashley waits for the rattling of dishes, the bending of spoons.

The medication, which she takes on any transcontinental flight, knocks her out and Spencer dreams of gazelles running against purple-highlighted plains.  
And she runs with them, flashes of a camera near her head.

_Flash. And they are darting to the right.  
Flash. And they are zig-zagging.  
Flash. And there is dust flying everywhere.  
Flash. And I can't breathe and I can't stop running.  
Flash. And I hear an engine roar to life behind me, turning around and skidding to a stop and a lion faces me and it has your eyes… it has your smile, it has your teeth, it has your mane of untamable hair…_

"I told you not to follow me here."  
"But I have to. You brought me. You bring me."  
"No. I cut you away, I set you free."  
"I'm not free. I'm with you."  
"Fuck you, Ashley… just fucking go back to your pack…"

Flash. And they are jumping, hitting the sky with the moon.  
Flash. And I am going to jump, too. I am going to reach the clouds. I am going to hang from the moon.  
Flash. And I am going to be free, just you wait and see.

"But you brought me! Dammit, Spencer, you brought me here!"

Flash.

And I look down into your eyes, your eyes in your skull and your body in your dress.  
And I drift down, my feet against a sidewalk and my head swimming.  
And I hear thunder and I watch as you beg me and as you break me, over and over…

Flash. And gazelles are trampling King High, tearing the ground up with ease.

She wakes up in the jeep, with a man driving who she does not know and with Janice ticking off towns on a map with a highlighter.  
And she thinks about this film, the reels and reels filled with the dead and dying, and Spencer wonders how she can live with herself anymore.

The world is turning into a mass grave and all she can dream of is a lover no longer.

And so she thrusts herself as deep as she can get, dirt and sand and tears on her skin like another layer of flesh. She witnesses tragedy, again and again, letting it sink into her soul like the whispered grievances of God. She cries and cries for a child on the side of the road, wanting to know a name to go with the unmoving face.  
She learns the features of every mother and every father, stares at the lines etched into their flesh like roads and traces them to shattered eyes.

And yet, Spencer still dreams of Ashley.  
More and more frequently, in tents at the center of town and with the distant sound of fighting, she dreams of Ashley as the girl once was.  
Before prom and before betrayal and before Clay died and before everything was irrevocably fucked up, that's the Ashley that she dreams of.

_Feather light. You are so soft. You are so warm. And when you smile, oh when you smile… don't ever stop smiling at me like that, Ash…_

"You've not called me that in a long time."  
"I know."

A kiss. On the chin. On the cheek. On the lips. You are so delicious. You are so raw.

"You brought me here."  
"I know."  
"Good."

A kiss. Everywhere. You are so good at this and I love you so much and I've never wanted anyone the way I want you… don't stop this, just don't stop this, Ash…

"What if I hurt you?"  
"I won't care."  
"You lie."  
"I know, but please… just don't stop this, Ash…"  
"Okay, Spence… okay…"

It's been a long time since you've called me that and I've missed it and you don't have to go, I think we can make this happen, I think we are meant to be… don't you, tell me you agree… don't you, Ash…

Spencer Carlin wakes up in Africa on the last day of shooting, body flush with the already humid weather and her skin cracks with dryness as she stands up from her cot.  
The dreams rush away like water and she lingers in the hazy shadows of canvas for a minute more, wondering if anything can really be done about severed ties and broken hearts.

She gets her camera and take a self-portrait, her face a map of the world in the bleary light of day, capturing this moment for posterity – a safe journey, a good deed, a moment of truth – all so she cannot deny it later when she returns home.

**** **** ****

TBC


	3. 3

When they first met, not the bleachers with King High's finest running around in circles, but in front of a locker door and with spilled coffee at their feet… when they first laughed together, television playing low in her air-conditioned room and the topic of disingenuous boys in their ears… when they first touched, confessions slipping out and yet it was planned… Ashley planned it from the moment Spencer came into view, blue eyes giving the sky a run for its money and cheeks tinted with shyness…

Ashley planned it as well as one plans a tidal wave – you see it coming and you know you don't have time to run. No tree is tall enough to keep a force of nature at bay.

And when they first touched, hand upon hand… when they first shared everything, from sunburns to sexuality… when they first flirted with one another, bathroom stalls and lip gloss and the fresh bloom of longing… when they fought for the first time, because they wanted each other and they wanted it to be easy and they didn't want to lose a friendship in order to save a love… and yet, they wanted it all, didn't they? Ashley wanted it all with Spencer.

_She watches Spencer leave the club and everything twists into a knot in her body. Aiden is watching her, hawk precision in doe-eyes, but he holds back from giving advice.  
'Coz this is what Ashley Davies does. She breaks others in order to not be broken.  
She'll break Spencer eventually, no matter how much she doesn't want to.  
Bass and beat along her skin, with not a trace of alcohol in her system, Ashley feels like a bomb about to go off and Aiden turns away, back to the bar and there isn't a girl from Ohio to be seen._

When they first kissed, not an almost-clench in some fake threesome, but the real deal – with real sighs and with real moans and with everything so damn real between them, skin and muscle in constant movement and fabric not torn, but tugged… when they first made love, inexperience and devotion married that time, no drugs and no hiding in order not to feel, because they wanted to feel it all… Ashley wanted to feel it all, tip of the tongue to the beating of the heart.

Ashley always wanted to feel it all, head to toe, in love with someone and that it might last.  
She wanted it to be Spencer, that's what she wanted, that's what she craved.

_It doesn't take much for her lips to form the words and for the words to come out. Aiden sits beside her, spinning a phone and looks desperate for a kiss. But she can't see that and she won't see that until it is too late. All she knows is that Spencer is being kept away. All she knows is that she can't lose this girl from Ohio. All Ashley knows is that she is in love and she has to hold onto it for dear life and she will shatter any rule to get Spencer back.  
He says it as a joke, but it becomes a plan. And a ladder to her Juliet, stars to guide the way, they run away… together._

She doesn't want to keep doing this, forever replaying the timeline of her life, whether in a hotel room in Tokyo or racing down the avenue in New York.  
Ashley doesn't want to be the first one awake, again, as Kyla blissfully sleeps away the day.  
She doesn't want to believe that losing Spencer can do this to her soul, can tear it up and can consume it… even now, years later and not a single word spoken between them…

Ashley doesn't want to feel this way anymore, wrapped up in a vivid memory like it is reality.  
But no tree is high enough, is it?  
She can't fix and she can't forget – she can't go back in time – she can't take back what was said or done… she can't make Spencer Carlin come back and she can't let Spencer Carlin go.

_"How is she?"  
"Ashley…"  
"What? You talk about Aiden all the time and tell me that we are all 'friends' again and I can't ask about her?"  
"I don't know. There."  
"Don't be a bitch, Kyla."  
"You know what, Ashley?"  
"God, what?"  
"…You haven't changed. You just haven't changed at all."  
"Whatever."  
"No, not 'whatever', you need to listen to me, okay? You've got to move on—"  
"I have! I'm just asking a damn question, just being curious!"  
"No you're not! That's just it, Ashley, you are not 'just being curious' at all… you are still so meshed with this fantasy of Spencer and not moving on with your life. She's not some girl anymore, you know? She's grown up and has a job and a __**life**__. A life without you… and you need to do the same, you need to let her go."_

Ashley Davies gave up cigarettes four months ago, citing the nasty habit for causing her colds around wintertime and making her voice more gravelly than normal.  
But she'd kill for one now, stepping out of the room and walking down the hall and getting in the elevator with some over-eager teenager and a pompous bellhop.  
She'd kill for something to take the edge off, but ambulance chasers still linger in the lobby and Ashley Davies can't afford to make a mistake now.

She darts off to the side and sprints down a workers corridor, shoving the exit door and grinning – just a bit – as the alarms go off. But her sunglasses are on and she looks like any fashionista in L.A. and a hotel going crazy means nothing to her.  
She's wrecked so many rooms. She's been given free rein to drink and cavort and be bad-tempered for most of her life.  
Now, it is a living. Now, it **is** her life.

Her fingers fish over a tattered phone book in a beat-up phone booth, the rush of cars flying past in the background and she can't stop her breath from becoming ragged, from catching in her throat painfully, as Spencer's number presents itself – black type on thin paper.

_"What the fuck, Kyla? Maybe I am trying to make amends, maybe I am trying to be a good person and just be a friend! What the fuck do you know, sitting here and telling me who I am, telling me what I am really doing when I ask about her—"  
"I just don't want anyone to get hurt. Not again, not this time."  
"Just… just fucking tell me how she is…"  
"I… look, Ashley, I don't know, not really. We kind of stopped talking about two or three months ago."  
"Why?"  
"I don't know, life got in the way or something like that…"  
"Don't bullshit me. Is she okay?"  
"It's not bullshit, I am just saying—"  
"I know your face when you lie to me, Kyla. Took me a while, but I know it. So, why did you two stop talking?"  
"She's not talking to Aiden either."  
"…Is she okay? I mean, health wise and everything…?"  
"I think so."  
"Kyla, I mean it…"  
"Okay, it's like this… just not in so many words, but I think it is hard for her. To talk to me or Aiden, because of—"  
"Because of me?"_

Kyla sighs out loud and Ashley reads it in her sister's face, a chapter on display, the most cherished paragraph that Ashley could ever savor and the most painful as well.

"Yes. Because of you. Because of the both of you. Which is why I think you should just stay away, stop asking questions and…"

But Kyla sighs out loud and Ashley is no longer listening, rational voices obscured by a familiar and missed tone, the sound of being in love and never stopping… it echoes in Ashley's head, a million drums strong.

And it hits Ashley like a punch to the face, Kyla's words slamming home and threatening to break skin, to cause blood to hit the floor.

Ashley Davies hasn't changed at all.  
As she dials the number with shaking hands, nothing has changed.

**** **** ****

TBC


	4. 4

It's your voice.  
It's your voice that hits me first, dredging up memories – shells to my shore, you are scattered along the landscape of my mind.  
And I freeze up.  
I freeze up, like it is winter in Maine. But it isn't… it isn't winter and this is not Maine.  
This is L.A., somewhere in the middle of the year, and you are not picking up the phone.  
It could be because you are out. It could be that you don't even live here anymore and your name in this book is just an old story. It could be that you hear me breathing and you don't want to know who is calling you in this way.

But it is me, blank as a sheet of paper, not knowing what to say now that I've called you.

"Spence…"

And it is automatic, me calling you that, even though I've probably lost the right to do so.  
Even though I've not said it out loud, kept it to myself like a secret, I've thought of the syllables sliding over my lips a thousand times.

"…seven years is a long time, isn't it? Um, Spence, if you are there… could you, I mean… would you… **fuck**…"

And it is automatic, me hanging up the phone roughly and kicking the side of this booth, shoving the door open in a rush of anger.  
Because I've lost the right to call you up, haven't I?

_Ashley comes back in the way she left, the hotel buzzing and a couple of photographers catch her.  
Flash. Flash. Flash.  
And she keeps her sunglasses on, tight smiles to all of them, just stopping short of running to the elevator.  
But in this climate-controlled box, with wires moving slowly, Ashley takes a breath.  
And then another. And then another. Until she feels like a shadow of herself again.  
Whoever the fuck that is…_

Kyla left a note on the other side of the door, rightfully avoiding prying eyes.  
It is an apology and a condemnation at the same time, ending with a repeat invitation to see Aiden up at the border of whatever backwater town the boy decided to heal in.  
She could go, if she could sneak away. She has one more show to do and then a week before heading across the ocean.

And Ashley looks at her cell-phone, fingers itchy to dial up that new number once more.  
That's when she would find a cigarette, once upon a time, and light up.  
It would mellow out those strung out parts of her personality, leaving her still wanting but calmer about it and less prone to erratic notions.  
Like darting up to the mountains to talk to an old friend.  
Like calling Spencer and not knowing what to say.  
Like actually listening to her sister.

But there isn't a pack in sight and, even though Ashley could call the front desk and find a million cigarettes at her disposal, she doesn't do it.  
One more show, that's what she repeats to herself as she looks at herself in the mirror.  
One more show… and she looks at the circles under her eyes, from too many nights with not enough sleep… one more show… and she tries to remember what this whole career in music was supposed to be about… one more show and then Ashley Davies has a week to kill.

One week before the whirlwind kicks up again and she is useless against its force.

"Ashley Davies, what are you going to do with this mini-vacation? Are you going to Disneyland?" I turn my voice up higher, trading in husky tones for perky ones, playing every single interviewer I've ever talked to… and I smile to myself, because I never did go to 'The Magic Kingdom' and I always wanted to, but that was a kid thing and my mother didn't do that kind of stuff.  
We did parties, dressed up like fancy clowns or show horses, for entertainment and to show off.  
I didn't get to go to see Mickey Mouse; I **was** Mickey Mouse, smiling like I was happy.

_'Hello folks!'_

The smile slips off my face and I can't smoke a single fucking thing and I have a whole week off…

_Ashley calls her sister and says she'll drive herself up there, to just leave a voicemail with directions.  
And she hangs up before Kyla can say anything else._

It's your voice.  
It's your voice I can't comprehend and I can't get enough of, replaying the short message as if I am rereading a favorite story.

And, for a second, I wonder if my dreams reached out to you.  
If, from my tent in the hot night in a whole other world, images in my brain took flight and found you and compelled you to call me like this.  
Or are you having the dreams? Is it you, once again, controlling this thing between us and taking me with you – whether I want to go or not?

_"Spence…"_

"You've not called me that in a long time…" I mumble into my quiet loft apartment, wondering if the mail on my desk or the clock on the wall or the sheets on my bed hear a thing I say at all.

_'Spence' and 'Ash', that's who they used to be… attached at the hip, deep brown and blue mixing together, because they were in love. It was love, sweet and tender love. It was love, painful and terrible love.  
Spencer Carlin didn't think too hard about what might happen or who might get hurt, falling for Ashley Davies so quickly it could have made your head spin.  
One look, perturbed and sarcastic, and Spencer fell.  
One touch, sure and soft, and Spencer fell even more.  
One kiss, hesitant and pure, and Spencer couldn't ever get back up again.  
Ashley owned the girl from Ohio, lock and key, even when Ashley pushed her away and even when Ashley broke everything they had.  
Spencer knows what it is like to be willingly enslaved by your own desires._

"…seven years is a long time, isn't it?"

"God, Ash… seven years **is** a long time…" I say out loud still, almost believing you will respond back to me, with your voice – raspy and broken – or with your body… a nod of your head, hair falling into your eyes like a wave…

I brace myself and walk away from the answering machine, dragging my bags to the bedroom.  
I methodically put clothes away and take a shower and brush my teeth and turn off the lights, all the while thinking of you.  
I think about you until I can no longer see well, my vision suddenly covered up by a flood of tears, running down my face and chilling the skin on my neck.

You didn't leave a number and I don't check the caller id.  
Maybe this is it – maybe this is the time where neither of us tries hard enough, after years of not trying at all, and we finally break free from one another.  
Or maybe… just maybe…

_'Spence' and 'Ash', that's who they used to be, girls in transition from childhood to adulthood, one of them not knowing how to give all to love and one of them not knowing how to hold back.  
Spencer never knew when to stop, not with Ashley and not with anything else.  
She pushed and pushed, good or bad, until the end result came into sight.  
Not because she had to have the answers. She just wanted to see things clearly.  
She wanted to see Ashley Davies clearly, past the bravado and the wounds and the money… she just wanted to see Ashley, all of Ashley, crystal clear and by her side._

I get up, a quarter past three in the morning, and I keep the lights off as I listen to the message again.  
I check the id and I call the number and no one picks up.  
There is no way to leave a message and I let it ring for minutes on end and I will you to fucking pick up… because we have to do something about all of this, all this history and all this torture and all this… all of this…

_'Spence' and 'Ash'… they used to be in love so deeply, it scared parents and it caused envy in other students and it should have saved the world, a love that like that… it should have been everything._

No one answers and I slam the phone down, angry at trying and angry at crying and angry at you.  
Because you can't call me, out of the blue, and then ignore me.  
You did that so long ago… you **can't** do it again…

"Dammit, Ashley, you can't do this to me again." I say, jaw tight and fingers gripping the edges of my tank-top, stalking back to my bed and the hours left to stare at nothing at all, just picturing a lost romance in my head – film loop on repeat, just like the message I didn't erase from the answering machine.

_'Spence' and 'Ash'… oh, they used to be and they still try to be, even now, even seven years and so much heartache later… they still try to be…_

TBC


	5. 5

She stares at the trees like they are a brand new invention, dewy green leaves breaking the sunlight into a million rays. And she wonders why she never climbed a tree, opting instead to spend her formative years skipping school and stealing sips of alcohol.  
But she is a city girl, through and through, raised on concrete and pavement.  
_Or just like the Joni Mitchell song says, I was raised on robbery…_  
She wonders if this is what it looks like in Ohio, grass and flowers and tall trees reaching up into the sky.  
She wonders if this is what Spencer looked at every day, before the girl got snatched away in the night and dragged to a different kind of wilderness, into L.A.

The three of them sit on his porch, Aiden's porch attached to a small house in the woods, and Kyla talks about making coffee and Aiden agrees and Ashley finds herself drifting away from their little conversation.  
_They sound like lovers_, that's what Ashley keeps hearing in every sentence they speak, her sister and her ex-boyfriend talking between the lines and having a secret conversation.

And it is nice to silently acknowledge that she no longer cares, finding inside her heart just the remorse at not seeing any of this sooner – the leash she attached to Aiden's neck, due to a child lost and a heart unwilling to open, that she pulled on whenever she wanted.  
And she gave no thought, not back then, to if he was happy or if he was sad or if he was just seconds away from breaking down. She just needed to have him so Kyla couldn't have him.  
Plain and simple jealously, a favorite toy she was being forced to share and Ashley could not let that happen – not with her dead father and not with her huge home and not with a guy who got caught in the middle of their war.

_War. Right. The one I was fighting and she was trying to end_, that's what Ashley realized years later, sitting at some bar after a show and with the slow burn of whiskey all along her throat.  
And they made amends, so many times, over and over – Kyla, with her words and her encouragement… Ashley, with getting down to the business of asking for forgiveness and accepting that all these mistakes were her own.

A mug is in her face, breaking off the staring match she was having with a bird – bright blue and sitting on a limb like it owned the world – and Ashley looks up into his eyes, Aiden's eyes, and he smiles.

"How's it feel to be famous?"  
"When haven't I been?"  
"True. But this is on your own terms, not your dad's."  
"I have good and bad days with fame."  
"What are the good ones like?"  
"Being on stage, sweaty and singing, knowing that there is at least one person in the crowd singing right along with me… just connecting with one fan like that… that's a good day."  
"That sounds almost spiritual, Ashley." Kyla says with a grin, sitting opposite the two of us and creating the point to this once-upon-a-time terror of a triangle. Now, it is just calm.  
No ships lost and no airplanes disappearing – we are a tranquil ocean.  
"Did I mention the money I make?" Ashley retorts.

They all three smile and Kyla lets out a peaceful sigh and Aiden takes a large sip of his coffee and Ashley looks back at the bird, challenging it with her playful glare.  
The feathers ruffle and a song carries from its beak, could be a warning or it could be submission.  
Ashley Davies likes to think of it as a tie, both of them too good to lose, and she finally releases the air stored up in her lungs – deep and cleansing, pushing out of her body and through her lips.

"What about the bad days?"

And Ashley doesn't pay attention to who asked the question, whether Aiden in his attempts to conjure up a friendship again or Kyla in an attempt to pull her stubborn sister out of hiding.  
And Ashley doesn't pay attention to that frightened voice in her head; the one that would keep her removed from all people and keep her in solitude with nothing but her fears to keep her company.  
She just breathes, in and out, finding more of her confidence with each inhale and exhale.

"It can be hard to trust anyone. It can be lonely. It can point out things… things a person would rather ignore, but you can't ignore a damn thing if all your time is spent on stage and then alone. It makes you think, all the time… it makes you think about mistakes and regrets."

There it is – that honesty, a steady pulse keeping time with the slow streaming of her words, and it is out there now – against Aiden's ears and flashing in front of Kyla's face… it is out there now, Ashley Davies revealed at last.

And Ashley has made a living out of not telling the truth, of covering up supposed weaknesses with candy-coated lies, of sprinting away when the gauntlet was thrown down. And Ashley has made a life out of keeping silent, out of keeping on the move, out of turning motels and buses into homes, out of the brief touches of a stranger's hands.  
And she can't do it anymore.  
Ashley cannot do this anymore, this duck-and-cover. A father's words coming back to haunt her very bones, _this dog-and-pony show…_

With the watery brown of Kyla's gaze before her, with Aiden's shy palm upon her shoulder…  
With the picture-perfect cerulean sky above, with the dulcet tones from a feathered breast…  
Ashley breaks down, hot tears into her coffee, weeping for that life not yet lived - for that life forsaken, but not yet forgotten.  
And the trees shake their boughs in a sudden northwestern wind, almost as if they are part of this cathartic moment, almost if they have something to say about all this pain and all this remorse.

But those towering giants just look like Ohio – a sweet and simple state that breeds kisses that can make one drunk - and Ashley can't do this anymore, can't pretend that love has ended with time and distance, can't move on when all she wants is to turn back time.

_You, stale breath and soft skin and that halo around your head. You, waking up and emotional and all mine. You, before I pick up your phone and before you get dressed and before you walk out the door.  
You, legs and arms finding their spot against mine, a jigsaw puzzle finally put together – you were the missing piece.  
You, smiling and reaching out for me and keeping me close. Or was that all me?  
Was I the one holding onto you for dear life, fearful that my eyes would open with the dawn and find this all a dream – a gorgeous fucking dream?  
Was I the one who acted like a virgin, all stutter and no bite, with your body taut above mine?  
Was I the one who fell in love and didn't know how to say it, didn't know how to let you in when you begged entrance, didn't know how to be a lover after so long of being a con-artist – a magician, there one minute and gone the next… was it all down to me that night, the night you decided I was the one to give you a new first time?_

But you placed your lips against my throat and my fingertips dug into your back and I think it was the both of us tumbling down – Jack and Jill and a pail of water – and I want to go back there, Spencer.  
God, I just want to go back.

Aiden steps back as Kyla steps forward and they embrace her in their own way – Aiden with his eyes and his understanding, Kyla with her arms and her love – and Ashley wants to hate her own emotions, wants to dislike this display and wants to shove this forest away and run back to the buildings that have made up her youth, back to the stench of alleyways and the hazy way the sun looks in the smog.  
L.A. in all its broken beauty, the only cradle Ashley has ever known, its bright lights and loud traffic the only lullaby to her weary mind.

Here she is, though, on a porch – with a sister and a friend and a bird flapping its wings against the air and a desire that won't turn to ashes… here she is, a week off from her never-ending touring, with nothing to show for any of it.

And she keeps on crying long after the tears dry up, hollow gasps trickling out of her mouth, a shuddering deep in the sinew of her muscles – phantom pains and reflexive jumps, a veteran of some distant conflict.

She can't do this anymore. She just **can't**.

"I can't…"

Two words, floating out as the day wears on to afternoon, coffee gone and the smell of something good coming from the kitchen and no one is there to hear it except Ashley Davies and her own beating and fracturing heart.  
And what she wants to halt is, all at once, tangible and abstract – _stop this longing, stop this needing, stop this tour, stop this whining, stop fleeing, stop stop stop…_

But before she can see it happening, the sky is dark and the food on her plate is cold and concerned glances are beckoning.  
And Ashley realizes that she can't stop a fucking thing, not back then – _not with Spencer or Aiden or my parents or any of it_. The future, a place that people used to believe would be the world of flying cars and cloud-bearing cities, it still looms ahead.  
It still remains unknown and…

_That's got to mean something, right? That's got to mean another chance at getting things right… __**right**__?_

"So… I know Kyla couldn't have made this. She can ruin a Pop Tart. Nice meal, Aiden."

And they are smiling again, the three musketeers – swords at the ready, but at rest – and they eat and they talk and Ashley doesn't let any of this yearning go, she just allows it to sleep a bit longer.  
Because that number is still on her mind and that number is still in a tattered phonebook by the freeway and seven years **is** a long time and it doesn't make any sense – the waiting and the wanting, dancing together and still so far apart…

_But since when does anything have to make sense... since when has __**anything**__ to do with me ever made sense_?

Because Ashley Davies can't turn the clock back, but she can try to move ahead again.  
Ashley can't stop this ride, but she can't just keep spinning her wheels.  
And she is in love what used to be - true - but she wonders about what might be, of what **could** be - on the other end of a fiberglass line, somewhere in California's trenches, is that girl that changed everything with just being at the right place at the wrong time.

On the other end of that line is Spencer Carlin.  
And it's always been that way.

TBC


	6. 6

As much as she doesn't think about it – with all the running around the studio, with all the cutting of this film, with the smell of dust and cardboard and ink clinging to her clothes like smoke – it is all she thinks about; it is spooking her from a little machine in her little apartment.

When she woke up that morning, that morning exactly four days ago, her finger hovered over the 'delete' button and time just stopped.

The cars kept on rushing outside her window and the sun kept on rising in the sky, but Spencer Carlin was immobile. Where the world moved, she remained static.

And she pulled her hand away that morning, that morning four days ago, and allowed Ashley Davies to linger. **Again**.

And she leaves the message on there still, to taunt her from afar and to remind her of what used to be.

And it does all those things, whether she listens to it (_over and over with glasses of wine and dry sadness_) or whether she shuns it – cold shoulder, nose to the grindstone.

A disembodied voice, a ghost – that's what Ashley is, a slightly metallic echo due to technology… but still distinctive, still rough around the edges, still Ashley.

"Still Ashley-**fucking**-Davies…" Spencer says aloud, the only one working this late and miles of negatives about her feet, the cool white light illuminating images of dark-skinned death.

And, in Africa, her sorrow seemed so small when placed beside this mountain of neglect, this steep climb from what one sees and what one knows should be, from living and dying.

And in Africa, for minutes on end… _just minutes, just seconds sometimes_… Spencer remembered what it was like to forget Ashley Davies.

_They have wars. You have a mansion. They have genocide. You have drunkenness. They have real problems. You have silly, stupid insecurities, Ashley…_

But that was then and this is now and L.A. is not Africa and L.A. brought them together as much as it tore them apart and that message has turned up the volume once again, bass overwhelming everything else that she might attempt to hear.

Spencer turns away, clicking off the lights and locking the doors.

She tries to think about the way the jeeps would careen off the roads, _stirring up tornados of sand before coming to a stop in some nameless township_. She tries to think about the lacquered eyes looking at her camera, _tired and beaten gazes captured forever… not just with film, but in my mind_.

She tries to think of cool nights and hot dawns, she tries to think of the stench of rot and of gunpowder – she tries to gather up those moments where life didn't revolve around lost love and broken promises… and it makes her feel that much worse about herself.

**Again**.

And home is not inviting, so Spencer walks right past her own door.

She doesn't do this often, doesn't care to get involved, doesn't want to keep courting disappointment.

But there is a message on a machine, one that she can't get rid of and one that she can't listen to anymore, so Spencer decides to do a little running of her own tonight.

It is music and it is deafening and there is sweat on this dance floor and Spencer easily glides within it, moves sure and face placid.

And hands tend to grip, tend to get eager, tend to want what she has on offer – but Spencer does not shove them away, no sneers and no polite declines tonight. She welcomes it and turns her body into something wild – sharpness to her teeth, claws no longer retracted… she comes undone, rocking back into a soft chest, into smooth arms.

_Oh, these curves are not yours…_

Betrayal comes in swiftly and Spencer rushes to beat her own heart at this race, trying desperately to be the tortoise and the hare and to finally win some peace.

She spins around and puts her lips against a woman's cheek, tongue peeking out to taste everything – from salt to limes to arousal – this woman is sweet putty in Spencer's hands tonight.

_Oh, this skin is not like yours…_

Taking it further, stumbling from the crowd and to walls that know a lot about one-night-stands, Spencer guides this woman – a babe in the woods – telling her with a thrust of hips where to touch and where to go to work, head pushing hard against brick.

It is a trick, though, and Spencer Carlin is getting too old for illusions.

Because they are always over too soon and they are always frayed at the seams.

Illusions crash down harder than reality and it hurts more, too.

_You, on the couch where Glen would play his video games and where my father watched basketball. You, on pins and needles and staring at me like I am some kind of dream. You, beautifully framed by low-lights and darkness. You, ripping words from your chest and giving them over to me, __**finally**__…_

_You, when you grin and when you take my hand. You, when you kiss me and when you hold my face, treating me like crystal. You, telling me you want me in a billion different ways._

And there it is, that button getting pushed and Spencer screws her eyes shut and memories tear at her and this woman below has no clue, too fast and too inexperienced – like all the rest.

But this is familiar, this letdown after the thrill. And it may be rare for Spencer to do this – to let intoxicated breath to coast over her indifferent bones – but it is this after-effect that never goes away.

This sensation of walking away, of pushing back at these startled girls and cutting through the nighttime air and of knowing that there is no one she is going home to… _no husky laugh, no tanned flesh, no fathomless brown eyes_… this is achingly familiar.

Just a message on a machine, that's all Spencer is staggering back to, an empty loft filled up with dastardly longings… and she'll shower, she'll try to sleep naked and not miss that old warmth beside her, she'll dream in jolts – between what should have been and what is going to be… and Spencer will leave Ashley's voice there tonight, every second bringing the opportunity to rid herself of this yolk.

And every second, she'll still hold on a little tighter.

_You, curls and waves of messed up hair. You, voice hoarse and cracked and soft. You, tender lips on my palm and looking into my eyes. You, in love with me as the sun awakens the rest of the world._

_Or was that just me?_

_Was I the one revealing heart-breaking gentleness, was I the one falling deeper and deeper, was I the one who just couldn't stop looking at you enough to see the forest for the trees?_

_Was I the one who discovered real joy and then ran fast the other way, back to judgments and back to ancient friends and always away from you? Was I the one who gave up after wanting so badly to give in?_

_But you hold me close and I melt into you and I think we were both falling, I think we were both so in love with each other and didn't know how to beg for more time…_

Spencer stares at the answering machine, blinking away the night before and bare feet cool against the floor. And as much as she thinks about it, as much as she wants to pick up this phone and try to reach Ashley again, as much as she wants this girl – this woman, this rock star, this fragile and nostalgic vision – to call once more and say more this time and they might talk…

'Coz seven years **is** a long time. And the past is the past. And you can't spend your life just waiting for lovers to return, for lovers to apologize, for lovers to love you.

She must drag her feet forward now, out of hallways and locker-rooms and childhood homes.

Out of the rubble of relationship – the cracks in which they slipped, the damage that they inflicted… Spencer must pull herself up and survive.

And she hesitates and she swallows hard and she pushes down, the last of her tears crashing down as Ashley's voice is removed from her life.

**Again**.

**** **** ****

TBC


	7. 7

It is white and chipped at the edges, like so many buildings in this city – a little rustic, a little dilapidated… a charm all its own, the kind of place college kids imagine living in when stepping out into the 'real' world, the kind of place where you'd find a healthy mix of artists and drug users – it is so like anywhere at all really.  
It is not special – no chrome, no walls of glass, no valet parking, no doorman – but, somehow, it ends up being the best place in the world.  
The crumbling stairs and the drafty concrete halls, they start to look wonderful to Ashley Davies because… if she is at all lucky in anything beyond a good voice and money… these steps and these halls lead to Spencer Carlin.

She got back to L.A. two days ago – flying fast from Aiden's home, nervous energy finally breaking out… finally breaking her down… and her knee bounced all the way home – it bounced to songs and it bounced to silence, it kept time to a tune that she had tried to ignore, but never could.

_God __**knows**__ I tried…_

And Kyla calls too much now – _every other hour_ - begging with veiled statements to let sleeping dogs lie, to let go of a passion played out… _to give up, to throw in the towel, to step away for good…_

But Ashley did that, seven years ago, she did that very thing and lived to regret it.  
And Ashley can't do this anymore, a mantra repeating in her head… Ashley Davies cannot let another chance slip through her fingers.

_If she turns me away, if she lashes out... If she takes me in… if she takes me back…_

And there is the hard part, reels and reels of kisses that used to be rushing by, this is their own storming of the beach – this is D-Day, this is the bomb up above, this is the moment that guns go off…

_If she still wants me… if she aches for me… _

And there is the easy part, touches like tattoos on the skin, this is the birthmark upon their bodies – this is the scarlet letter that would eventually come and this is the ancient design against the very earth, this is being owned and being claimed…

It is just a building, a bit broken and a bit stylish, but it holds Spencer Carlin somewhere in its bones.  
And Ashley walks quickly, before she can change her mind out of fear and peels back the first layer of an age-old wound.

When thirty-three comes into view and Ashley reaches out, shaking fist and gripped phonebook page and wide eyes… when she knocks softly, then loudly and then repeatedly… when she holds her breath and doesn't release it…

_If she hates me, if she can't look at me, if she needs me, if she can't forget me…_

And there is Spencer Carlin, a swift kick to the gut and the sharp sting of ocean water… there is the one that got away, there is the one who left fingerprints everywhere in Ashley's life, there are those blue eyes and that face and those lips… and Ashley breathes once more.

"Spencer…"  
"Ash…ley…?"  
"Um, can… uh, can we talk?"  
"Talk? You want to **talk**?"  
"Yes. Can we? Please?"

_If she slams this door in my face… if she curses my name…_

"Why? 'Coz… 'seven years is a long time'?"  
"You got my message then…"  
"I erased it."  
"Okay."  
"And talking to you… I **can't** talk to you, Ashley. I just can't."

_If she forgives me… if she still loves me…_

"I'm sorry, Spencer. I am so **fucking** sorry."  
"You should go now, okay? I need you to go now."

_If she can just… just… just… If I can just… just… just…_

"I'm at the Weston, downtown, for three more days… room fifty-nine."  
"I don't care."  
"…I know."

And they stare at each other, agony and desire and so many stupid and wonderful things swimming at the surface – _seven years too late, seven years too long_ – and Ashley knows Spencer is lying and Spencer knows it, too.  
And Ashley forces their eyes to meet fully and she sees a million trees swaying in the breeze – _I see a starry sky in Ohio and I see a girl's smile against the surf and I see another Spencer Carlin…_

…right before the door shuts, Ashley recognizes the love of her life in that gaze, brief and beautiful – a comet across the sky.

**** **** ****

Right before sixty and right after fifty-eight… and if you add the five to the nine, you get fourteen. And if you break that number down, you get five.  
And it is something she does when she is nervous, a habit born about a lifetime ago and in another world, back in Ohio – where girls were just girls and boys were just boys and there wasn't confusion and there wasn't lust. Spencer just **was** in Ohio and nothing more.

And if there was a routine that seemed too hard or a test that was too important, she would silently break every number down until she got a singular digit. And then, if her nerves were still present, she'd do it again. _And again. And again._

But here she is, re-counting and re-adding in an empty hallway at the Downtown Weston – not a maid in sight, not a single cart of towels and sheets. Not a single guest passing by, card-key in their hand or screaming child by their hip… It is an empty hallway and the carpet keeps your feet from making any sound at all.  
And Spencer could just slip away again, as if she never came here and as if she never wanted to.

_As if I didn't need to_.

It is the need, though, that propels you forward and keeps you going when all others forsake.  
It is the need and the want that makes you dream at night, that makes you burn for things out of reach.  
It is the need and the want and the longing… it turns you inside-out and you are no longer sane.  
There is the Spencer who works hard and flies around the world and documents the sorrows, the trials and the tribulations – catching it on film, trapping it within her mind.  
And there is the Spencer who shut the door in Ashley's face and who sat down heavy upon the couch and who trembled uncontrollably… there is the Spencer who is still so **fucking** in love and hates it.

_And loathes it. And can't stop it. And is tired of it. And is lost without it._

So, she counts it again.  
_Five plus nine is fourteen. One plus four is five._  
And she is no longer motionless in the hall, those few feet crossed without thinking.  
_Nine plus five is fourteen. Four plus one is five._  
And her fist comes down hard against the surface, a solitary thump echoing in this barren side of this hotel.  
_Four plus one is five… five is… five is…_

The critical eye – the one Spencer has developed over time, the one that she uses to take in every shot and to set up every scene – it sees so much more than her heart does.  
It sees the lines of age on Ashley's startled face, hints of weariness at the edge of the eyes… signs of joy at the corners of the mouth… shoulders that seem slumped with too little sleep, hands that are gripping the door knob – white knuckled and unsure…

The critical eye sees it all and takes it in and catalogs it for later.  
But the heart pounds out and the heart cracks painfully and the heart screams out for something… and the heart isn't even sure for what it so plaintively begs…

And Spencer could still leave, even with them frozen in front of one another with nothing but an empty hallway to witness it.  
She could just step back and walk away, walk fast away like Ashley did seven years ago.  
She could inflict the wound this time – she could raise up her chin and cut Ashley down and it would satisfy that girl who cried and cried and who fell apart all those years ago.

_It would be justice, right_?

And Spencer knows who is right and who is wrong here, the score was never lost and she never forgot it.  
And Spencer knows that time heals nothing, not really, not with her chest hurting and with Ashley's eyes filling up with tears.  
And Spencer knows that there is no going back, there is no sprinting for the elevator now…

_A message is easy to erase. But not the person behind it. God… I just don't know… I just don't know __**anything**__ anymore…_

Because Spencer knows anger and sadness, but Spencer knows what it is to be with Ashley Davies, too.

_And I can't forget. I've tried so hard… but I've not forgotten a single moment.  
Not a single smile. Not a single kiss. Not a single laugh. Not a single hug. Not a single touch.  
Not a single promise. Not a single date. Not a single sensation._

I've not forgotten a single thing about her.

Ashley's lips part and words are about to tumble out and Spencer can't stand it.  
She can't stand any of this anymore. _Not now_.  
And she doesn't even give herself time to count those numbers out again, because she is cresting like a wave and she is hitting up on Ashley's shore – it is harsh and it is still flawless, this kiss that tastes of weeping and of misery… this kiss of remembrance and of belief…

Ashley's fingers, thin and strong, thread through her hair and Spencer slams the two of them back – corner of a where walls meet surely digging into Ashley's back – and… for just a second… all those billion of numbers just slide away, additions and subtractions somehow not as thrilling as this out-of-control spark.

And it fixes nothing, not a single thing.

And Spencer knows this fact most of all.

**** **** ****

TBC


	8. 8

Where it should be soft, it is hard. And where it should be painful, it is unbearably gentle. It is all the wrong things and all the best things – all at once.

Ashley feels her own body moving and hears something a lot like weeping from her own mouth and she slides down with her arms full of Spencer Carlin.  
Spencer Carlin, kissing her again and it is the sweetest torture – ropes always held so tightly, controlling actions… _I've been a marionette for this love_.  
And she won't stop. She **can't** stop.  
Even though this could be the only thing left between what used to be (_a date, a kiss, a friendship_) and what is to come (_what is to come now, Spencer… besides you and I, only physically_).  
Even if this is a dream and Ashley soon wakes up – she'll maybe catch the tail end of the day and she'll sit in her room and watch the lights blink from above and she'll talk to Kyla and she'll wish… _for the hundredth, millionth time_… for another chance at forever with a girl she walked away from.

Even with all of that hovering over-head, Ashley won't stop. She **can't** stop.  
Not when Spencer tugs at her bottom lip, not when Spencer lifts the hem of a periwinkle blouse and removes it, not when Spencer shudders – almost reverentially, almost agonizingly – atop Ashley's _nervous… desperate… completely branded hands…_  
Not when they are against one another, the sound of clothing and of hot skin, the sound of what is slick and what is rough. Not when everything that Ashley wants in this world is suddenly underneath her, tender and angry and… and…

_Mine, dear fucking God, you've always been mine. And I've always been yours. We shouldn't be __**this**__, though… but how do I fix anything when you are looking at me like that, like you could hate me and need me so badly?_

Ashley is pushing now, familiar thighs around her hips and they are as seamless as they once were – where Spencer rises up, Ashley does the same and they groan.  
They groan, parched and raw, they groan and they rock into one another faster and Ashley **can't** stop.  
She can't stop her body from lowering, from placing every inch of her long-denied form against Spencer.  
And, stuck in the same boat in the same ocean, Spencer can't stop it either.  
Spencer can't stop those fingers from winding along Ashley's face and bringing them together – forehead to forehead, tip of the noses bumping, a sweep of the lips growing more and more frantic with each thrust.

_What is to come now, Spencer? Besides you and I, only physically… please, tell me, there is __**more**__ after this… please?_

"Oh… god…"

Not a prayer, but certainly giving thanks. But also, it is damnation and Ashley **can't** stop saying it now.  
Only Spencer's tongue in her mouth ends it. Just not in Ashley's head.  
In there it is repeated and repeated, bringing that L.A. wild child and that scoffer of all things spiritual… of all things meaningful… right down to her knees.

And Ashley's head is somehow on Spencer's shoulder and she feels cold when she should feel sweaty and she fights the urge to hold on tightly to Spencer now.

_Because this isn't a beach, where you confessed everything. This isn't a night where you give me all of you. This is not when you hop into my car and run away with me. And we are not dancing, we are not dressed up and admiring one another. We are not in school anymore, with you chasing me down and with me trying to understand why you'd do such a thing… That's not who we are._

And what are we now, Spencer? What the _**fuck**__ are we now?_

"We… uh, we need to talk. I think."

And Spencer's voice is closed-off where it used to be so open. And Ashley **can't** stop it, can't stop the tears that roll down her face and sink into Spencer's beautiful hair.  
There are no comforting hugs and there are no soothing words.

It is just the two of them, mostly naked and aligned on the floor, unable to get up again and unable to help the other one stand.

And Ashley can't stop any of this. Not at all.

"Yea…" Ashley whispers out.

**** **** ****

TBC


	9. 9

Spencer's hands hold the glass of ice-cold water.  
And then they smooth over her legs, up one way and then down again.  
But they always return to the glass, clinging to it – any port in a storm, anything will do – because her hands will betray her.

And she knows this because she has just witnessed it.  
And her fingers burn, her palms sweat.

So, Spencer holds the glass and grips the glass and toys with the glass.  
All of this so she won't reach out and try to take back… _everything, take back what should be ours, take back a girl so long gone…_

And she doesn't want to look up, in this trendy and crowded bistro as the L.A. sun pushes past window panes and bears down on everyone – the rich, the artsy, the destitute, the lonely – Spencer doesn't want to look up and find those brown eyes opposite her.

_But I don't want to look up and find them not there either. God, what do I want…?_

And what does she want? What did she expect, walking with an unknown purpose to the hotel that held Ashley Davies, but to have this moment?  
What did she want so much that she ignored the words of protest ringing in her ears, painful and broken?  
What is this longing still doing here, tugging and tearing her down… _right back into you, Ashley, always back into you…_

Spencer looks up then, as if confused by her own feet and her own clothing and her own messed-up logic – and Ashley is still there, gazing out at the world passing by and Spencer feels like she could break this glass in her hands… whether from love or from rage… _oh, it is both and how do I finally find the end of these feelings? All of these feelings she still awakens in me… how do I finally set us both free?  
Is it possible at all? Will we be forever damned to hurt one another and need one another?_

"I dreamed of you in Africa."

And it is not what she plans to say, because she didn't plan to say a damn thing.  
But flashes of images pervade her brain now, cracked and sepia-toned pictures of their bond stretched over the continents – and then they are overlapped by today… whispers of flesh, of tempers cooled by kisses and by knowing the lay of someone's personal lands… not the Serengeti , but the slope of where Ashley's hip disappears into her side and merges with her abdomen…

_I could travel you forever and never tire out._

And it is not what she plans to think, because she didn't plan to think a damn thing at all.  
But that is just another lie and Spencer allows her hands to drift away from the glass, to drop to her sides and finally rest.

"Were you filming there?"  
"Yes."  
"Darfur?"  
"No. A project to bring awareness to the AIDS epidemic."

Ashley's eyes blink, but do not turn her way.  
They still stare outside, on the traffic and on the millions of people, and Spencer almost chokes on her own desire again. She feels it push inside of her blood, wave after wave, lapping at her skin with insistence.  
But she leaves the glass alone. She doesn't look away.  
Because she didn't plan on any of this – _not sex, not talking, not falling apart and not falling in love all those years ago… but I did and I can't turn back time… she and I cannot turn back time… we can only settle things now and… and… hope for more, hope for better days… we can only hope, right?_

And Spencer Carlin deals in truth, capturing it on celluloid and jotting it down in notebooks.  
And Spencer Carlin deals in reality, even if it hurts… _even if it kills me…_.

"I dreamed… about loving you and wanting to… break free of you. And I… I don't know how to do one without the other, Ashley. I don't think I **can** do one without the other… not anymore."

And like lightning, those eyes are on Spencer and the roar of the ocean isn't far away now – it rumbles to life in Ashley's gaze, reaching out with white-capped hands that speak of undeniable despair.

"…Being sorry doesn't matter, does it?"  
"It does, Ashley, it does… I just **can't**… I can't…"  
"I know."  
"Getting over you… it never happened, not well enough. It never stuck with me, it never took… but being with you, even now, and I feel… I feel…"  
"Like everything is wonderful and horrible at the same time."

And they don't look away from each other this time, the bistro forgotten and that other world left behind on the sidewalks – it is just Spencer and Ashley.

_No, we are not Spence and Ash anymore, are we?  
That's not who we are anymore.  
We are just two people… who used to know one another… who still… oh God, who still love each other and have to let it all go…_

And old Spencer wants to fight, wants to scream, wants to pound her fists on the floor.  
Because that girl has never stopped wanting Ashley, even when it was pointless to do so.  
Because that girl wakes up every day and sees another lifetime, the one where Ashley Davies was her first real love and her first real heartbreak and her first of so many things… _so many wonderful and horrible things…_

"Yes. Just like that." Spencer whispers, fearful of her own voice suddenly. And she has a right to be, because it sounds like the hardest thing she has ever said and she is crying quite without meaning to.

And those thumbs, rough from plucking the strings of a guitar… _but still so soft, still so sure…_ are there – not to hold on, just to offer what they have left now. Compassion and understanding and pockets of weeping in the grooves upon Ashley's fingers and they catch all of Spencer's tears.

"I love you. I always will."  
"I know. I love you, too. Forever."

And that cheek, tanned from too many days at the beach… _but still smooth, still so delicate…_ is there – not to create something, just to say all that is left to say. Forgiveness and acceptance and ceaseless devotion along the expanse of Ashley's face and Spencer can't help but lean against it one last time, to soak it in as much as she can and not shatter right here in this restaurant.

Ashley's breathing is shallow and dense, as if every single shred of these past seven years is held in her lungs and Spencer is moving with intent.  
And it is not what she plans to do, but that's okay for now – that's how it's always been between them… _we didn't plan on loving so hard, on falling for one another so damn much… and you didn't plan on running away and I didn't plan on getting so mad… we didn't plan on this, on any of this – it just is, isn't it, Ashley?_

And they hug, arms shaking and things said without speaking, as L.A. drifts from day to night and prepares to do it all again in a few hours. They hold fast, for the last time, even as the bill comes and the lights get dimmed and people stare.

Spencer Carlin lets them stare all they want.  
Because she knows that none of them – not the waiter, not the old lady at the bar, not the socialites or the tourists… _not my friends, not her fans, not Kyla or Aiden, not my parents…_

No one can ever know this kind of love, this wonderful and horrible kind of love, and Spencer Carlin doesn't know what comes next – only that the 'next' must now come.

And Spencer deals in the truth, so she does not pretend that her arms don't feel empty as Ashley walks away – taking in the sway to those steps, like the ground is no longer solid and taking in the way Ashley pushes the doors open wide, like not even miles upon miles is enough room to in which to leave.

Spencer does not put on an act, not ever, and not now – staring off into space, picking up where Ashley left off and watching the world again… the buses, the taxis, the homeless man slumped against the trash can and the cops speeding past and so many people… _so many people, getting on with life and with living. _

And so she gets up, gets on with living again.  
And the bitterness slides off, pooling at her shifting steps. And the anger melts away, blown back by a gust of smog-filled breeze.

Spencer Carlin deals in reality… _even if it kills me, right?_  
But she won't die this time.  
_Seven years is a long time to stop living…_

"Too long…" She murmurs as she walks home, taking in everything with unburdened eyes and… she hopes, after many nights of not knowing how that felt anymore…  
Spencer hopes for more than just existing.

_And I hope it for you, too, Ashley… wherever you end up, wherever you go… I hope it for you, too._

**** **** ****

She expected to just die – to feel her heart stop and constrict painfully and then… and then…

_I'd finally be dead. I'd finally be exactly as I have been for all this time. Cold and gone._

But it didn't happen that way and Ashley inhales deeply, as if she is on land again after being in the water too long – air pulled in greedily and filling her body.  
And she walks to the hotel, not looking back at the street she just traversed… not looking back at the table that she just sat at… not looking back at Spencer, the only girl she'll ever love this strongly and the only girl she'll ever willingly set free…

_Because it hurts, yes… but because it is over… we are no longer Spence and Ash, girls grasping at one another – in lust, in need, in battle, in sorrow – we are no longer in my car and we are no longer fighting outside that school… we are no longer that couple, that joy or that anger… I'm not sure what we are now, but… it isn't like it used to be and that's a good thing, right, Spencer?_

The moment she saw Spencer's eyes, blue and endless and shimmering with honesty, Ashley couldn't look away again – couldn't falsify her own emotions, her own caring, her own ability to let things be – and so she moved forward and she took Spencer into her arms and she cried.

Paying no mind to men or women watching them, paying no mind to the minutes that ticked by or the food that came – and went… Ashley just held Spencer and was held in return and they said good-bye.

They said good-bye and they said 'I'm sorry' and they said 'I love you still' and they did it… they broke free and they forgave and they set loose the anguish.

And Ashley walked away, she didn't run this time, and she didn't turn around – pillars of salt left for another lifetime and for whom she used to be.

And Ashley does not pretend that there isn't a space in her heart that only Spencer Carlin can fill… but something light is in her steps again, something she almost forgot how to feel… _and it is freedom, hard-won and it is mine and I don't want to lose it again…_

And the bitterness slides off, fluttering away from her shoulders. And the anger melts away, dissolving with every intake of city air and Ashley thinks it is funny that she feels like smiling.  
After seven years, she feels like smiling just for the hell of it.

_Seven years is a long time to not smile…_

Kyla looms outside her room door and before the girl can pepper Ashley with a billion questions, she leans forward and presses a kiss to Kyla's cheek.

"Everything's okay, Ky. It's all going to be okay."

And, for the first time in so long, Ashley means it. And, for the first time in a long time, Kyla believes her.  
And they stay up for the rest of the night, talking about nothing but saying a lot more with looks and Ashley gets ready for the rest of her tour – packing up and making calls - and she watches her little sister drift to sleep.

And Ashley's eyes stare out the window, all of L.A. shining like a star from this high up and she sends a prayer up… _bet you don't even know me, do you, God? We don't talk, do we? And while this might not be a regular occurrence… just this once want kill me, will it?_

And she says good-bye to that girl she used to be, broken and hollow and so eager to wound others.  
She cuts those ropes and watches her float away.  
And Ashley hopes… for the first time in a very long while… Ashley hopes for more than just existing.

_And, wherever you are, Spencer Carlin… I hope the same for you, too… All the same for you, Spencer…_

**** **** ****

END


End file.
